The camp of the 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi has reacted to the long convoy which accompanied President Bola Tinubu from the airport to his residence in Lagos State.
The President on Tuesday returned from his overseas trip and the video of his large convoy as he moved from the airport to his residence has gone viral on social media, attracting mixed reactions.
Some supporters of the president have argued that the convoy was not exclusively for the President as it included that of some other dignitaries, including Governors and other top officials.
In a statement on Thursday, the head of the Obi-Datti Media Office, Mr Diran Onifade, in reaction to the convoy put the number of vehicles in the President’s convoy at 124.
He condemned what he described as an “outlandish display of power” by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu during a recent visit to Lagos State.
According to him, Tinubu exhibited a reckless display of raw power that has not been witnessed from any politician since the creation of Nigeria by the British. He added that not even the military known for their brash and unbridled display of raw naked power dared to exhibit such recklessness.
Onifade said the Obi-Datti Media like millions of Nigerians whose sense of decency have been affronted by Tinubu’s unbridled tendency to flaunt power and position, joins the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi in pointing out the hypocrisy inherent in Tinubu’s action.
He said, “For a man who promised to cut the cost of governance to be moving around with an over-bloated convoy of security details and aides, surely speaks volumes of his ‘do what I say and not what I do’ attitude.”
When asked on Thursday by newsmen for a reaction to the long convoy of the President declared Obi said he is yet to watch the video but urged leaders of the country to lead by example.
The former Anambra Governor said it is not enough to ask Nigerians to make sacrifices but the leaders too must visibly make the sacrifices because the people are suffering.
According to Obi, leaders must not be the reason the followers continue to suffer.
The present Nigeria requires that all those who serve and lead must do so by example. Their behaviour and their public conduct must be in consonance with what the society requires today. We cannot continue to preach for the people to sacrifice without sacrificing too. The sacrifice must now start from the leaders, visibly, measurably at all times because the people are suffering; and we must now be at the forefront of the suffering,” Obi said.
